How it Might Have Happened
by Rasputin The Mad Monk
Summary: What if Harry had reacted to his upbringing with a little more bitterness? He wouldn't go into House Gryffindor, that's for sure. Minor additional changes to canon where appropriate.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Some of the chapters posted (viz., 2, 4) didn't result in the story's Update Date changing. I'm trying to figure out why, but in the meantime, if you want to keep abreast of new developments, please follow the story using the follow/favorite button up top, and you'll get notified when a new chapter is posted.  
I don't own Harry Potter.  
Thanks for reading!**

* * *

"I can help you there," offered Draco. Harry hesitated for some moments, torn between Draco and Ron. This was an important decision, and he had to make it now.

Harry wanted to refuse, but then all the memories of his childhood flooded back to him, of Dudley and Piers Polkiss and the gang and all that would surely happen to him if he refused the Malfoy boy. Before Harry had completely made up his mind, Draco had shaken his hand and pulled him away from the others, sending a short and satisfied sneer down at a shocked and reddening Ron; just as the youngest Weasley opened his mouth to say something, McGonagall came back with an authoritative clearing of her throat and led them all to be Sorted.

"I'm glad you're smart, Potter," Draco told him in a soft voice. "You really wouldn't want to be stuck with _them_."

Harry mumbled something indistinct, feeling one part relieved at his safety and one part sick at leaving his friends.

"They are a disgrace to the rest of us pureblooded wizards, the whole lot of them," groused the other boy. "Did you know? Their father's been trying to put a law through to protect Muggles. _Muggles._ As if—"

"Muggles?"

"Yeah. Muggles." Draco favored Harry with a curious stare and a sarcastic drawl. "Surely you know what a Muggle is?"

Harry's jaw flexed. "Yeah." He shot a look over at Ron, who was refusing to look at Harry and glaring at everyone else. "Protecting Muggles."

"Mm-hmm. Loves them, his family does. Rumor says his dad plays with Muggle toys in his garage. He gets loonier each year! Although maybe he was always like that." Draco let out a bark of laughter, and Crabbe and Goyle laughed along dutifully.

Perhaps something had showed on Harry's face. "What is it?" asked Malfoy, a little rudely. "Feeling sorry for Weasley?"

Harry grimaced. "Muggles."

The blond boy was incredulous. "You're feeling sorry for—"

Harry pushed past Draco on his way up the stairs, fighting memories of his uncle. "Don't mention Muggles around me."

* * *

Harry's foul temper eased a bit in the Great Hall, which was truly wondrous. Candles hung from the ceiling—no, floated in midair, high above the ground—and older students sat at each of the four tables, all angled towards the row of teachers seated at the head of the room, in front of which sat a hat. On a stool. Harry nearly jumped when a gash opened up near the brim and the thing broke out into song.

"When I call your name," said Professor McGonagall afterwards, "you will sit on this stool and put on the Sorting Hat." She unrolled a large scroll of parchment. "Abbot, Hannah!"

A blond girl with pigtails bounded up to Sorted, landing in Hufflepuff to great applause, and several others followed her when their names were called in turn.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Harry felt guilty seeing her walk up to the hat—he'd left her behind at the stairs and she hadn't even done anything to deserve it. Well, Ron hadn't either, but… Muggles! He shuddered and watched Hermione sit with the hat. This one was a Ravenclaw, for sure.

"Gryffindor!"

Or a Gryffindor; who was he to argue?

After a few more Sortings, Draco leaned over to Harry. "I'm next," he said softly. "See you in Slytherin."

Indeed, the hat had barely touched the Malfoy boy's head when it shouted, "Slytherin!" and the table on the far right accepted him with a round of applause.

Shortly afterwards, "Perks, Sally-Anne" took her place among the older students and the next name was "Potter, Harry!"

The Great Hall had always had a base level of whispering. Feet shuffled when students entered the room, feet shuffled as the first-years awaited their turn to be Sorted, seventh-years carried on lazy conversations at the rear of the room, and new arrivals to the houses received quick introductions from their housemates.

The Great Hall had now fallen fully silent. Shivering a little, Harry made his way slowly up to the hat and stool. Dumbledore—Harry recognized him from the Chocolate Frog card, if nothing else—leaned forward a little, and even Professor McGonagall seemed to be staring at him a little more intently than usual.

Taking the hat, Harry sat on the stool and surveyed the room one last time. Neville and Hermione at the Gryffindor table, Draco sitting with Slytherin, and Ron standing alone, one of the few un-Sorted, looking at Harry at last, genuine concern on his face.

Then, Harry put on the hat and the brim covered his eyes.

* * *

- _Ahh,_ said a voice. _Ah, yes. Harry Potter._

 _Erm… hello…_

- _Hello, Harry Potter, and welcome to Hogwarts. But where to welcome you_ to _, I wonder…_

 _Er._

 _-Lots of courage, I see, and a fine mind, not afraid of hard work… what shall I do with you?…_

 _Silence_

 _-No? Hmm. You worry about having friends, Harry, and what others will think of you. You can have what you want in Gryffindor, you know. You've met two of them already, it seems, and the rest are matched in friendliness only by Hufflepuffs. You have the courage to face down your fears and live a life of happiness. And it's not too late to put things right with Ron, either; Houses run in families, and it's not too much to say he'll be put there with you. You might even become best friends._

Harry thought about that. He could take Gryffindor, be friends with Hermione, and Neville, and even maybe Ron, but there was no way they'd stick by him, not really, no one ever had before, not after Dudley got to them, and here Malfoy was _offering to let him join_ and Crabbe and Goyle were so big—

 _Hat_ , thought Harry, _I don't think I can take Gryffindor._

He registered nothing for a long moment, except perhaps a sad silence.

 _I am here to Sort,_ said the Hat at last, _not to pass sentence. The choice is yours._

Harry thought for a moment about the other Houses, but he couldn't risk it. Here, he had an open invite, and no one had ever been kind to him twice. _I'll take Slytherin._

The hat seemed a little more sure of itself this time, ritualistic, even, as it spoke the next lines. _Are you sure? You could be happy, you know, in Gryffindor; it's all here, right in your head…_

An image of Draco, surrounded by older students, chatting as if he'd known them his whole life, flashed in Harry's mind. _Slytherin_ ¸ he said, more determined than ever.

 _Well, if you're sure,_ said the hat, _better be…_ "Slytherin!"

* * *

The Great Hall had been silent before Harry put on the hat, and during the course of its deliberation, the noise level had risen to a faint anticipatory whisper, but now the silence seemed deeper, if anything. Colder, really; barer. Harry set down the hat and made his way to the Slytherin table, each step feeling louder than the one before. Was _anyone_ going to move, acknowledge him, or was this another one of their games, another test, maybe he was still under the hat and this was a vision of what was going to happen if he didn't reconsider—

There was a scattering of applause, all of it from the Slytherin table and from one set of hands at the staff table behind him, and Harry sat down next to Draco, numb.

Draco clapped him on the back, beaming. "Well done, Harry! Glad to have you with us." There was a murmur of assent from the rest of the Slytherin table, and quite a few lingering looks, both from them and from the other tables, as a fair number of the other students turned once more to watching the ongoing Sorting.

Ron did indeed end up in Gryffindor, sitting down next to Neville and being welcomed heartily by several redheaded boys who were most likely his brothers. He sat with his back to Harry, which made it much easier for them to ignore each other, which was just as well with Harry, who, despite his conversation with the hat, hadn't quite figured out what to think of the other boy just yet.


	2. Chapter 2

It was an unusual dinner in some regards. Eating all he wanted was a new and special treat, and when the food arrived, Harry was one of the first to pounce.

"Slow down, Harry," Draco said, looking at him in amazement. "It's not a race, you know." He leaned in a little closer and added under his breath, "And I think people are expecting better table manners from the Boy-Who-Lived."

Harry felt his face burning. "Sorry," he said, "habit," and ignored the even stranger look Draco and some of the others were now giving him.

"Blaise Zabini," said the boy on Harry's right, extending out a hand. Harry stared at it blankly for a few moments before he realized that the boy was introducing himself. "Nice to meet you, Blaise," he said and continued eating.

Introductions continued in fits and starts all throughout the meal. It was rather like being in the Leaky Cauldron with Hagrid all over again, but this time he could get a bite to eat in between handshakes. From time to time, Draco would lean over to whisper something about the person Harry had just met, or about their family.

As it turned out, an old Pureblood superstition held that the children born every seven years would have an auspicious future, which meant that the favored sons and daughters of many Noble Houses all ended up sharing the same birth year; Harry's year was that year, and so he met a long list of people Draco told him to keep watch on.

The Parkinsons were probably the second most influential house after the Malfoys; their family owned a number of stables of rare and exotic magical creatures, and nearly controlled the entire trade in Britain. The Zabinis held an extra three seats in the Wizengamot due to the frequent and universally-ill-fated marriages of the Zabini matriarch, all of which seemed to be to the last heirs of minor houses. And the Davises—or was it the Greengrasses?—had a significant, though not controlling, interest in the extremely lucrative business of supplying materials for wandmaking.

"Wait a minute," Harry said. "My wand only cost seven galleons. What gives?"

"Subsidies," Draco confided. "The Ministry pays nearly the entire cost of your first wand." His voice turned unashamedly contemptuous. "Half-bloods and Mudbloods wouldn't be able to afford them otherwise."

"Ah," Harry said. He deliberated for a moment, trying to decide if it was worth asking. "What's a Mudblood?"

"The _worst_ kind of wizard. If you can even call them wizards at all, that is. Someone born to Muggle parents, and they live their whole life in a Muggle home and then come here and don't know a _thing_. And they call _us_ backwards!"

"..Like me," said Harry, feeling dejected.

"No," Blaise interjected, "you're a Half-blood. It's common knowledge: your mother wasn't a Pureblood, but your father was, so there you go."

"No, I meant about not knowing anything about wizards." Here he was again, out of his element, the _different_ one. Even among wizards, his "own" kind. Harry should have known better than to think anyone could _really_ accept him.

"Oh," said Draco. "That's just because you grew up with those Muggles. You've got the blood of a wizard, and that's what counts. I mean, where do Mudbloods get their magic from anyway, right?" He shook his head.

Harry frowned as he thought of something. "How do you know so much about me? How does all Wizardkind know so much about me? It's not fair."

Draco favored him with a pitying look. "You're in the history books, Harry. You don't take down the greatest Dark Lord this country has ever known and then fade from memory, you know. Pick up a textbook on any of the relevant subjects—Defense, History, Dark magic—and if the publication date is after '82, the last chapter's probably on you and Him."

"Oh." He really was famous _._ The constant handshakes and bows were one thing, but people studying him in school was something else. "But how do you know about my home life? I mean, were there wizards watching me the whole time I grew up?" Because if there were, and no one had decided to say anything during those eleven terrible years, he was going to get _very_ angry, right here and right now.

Draco looked like he was trying to think of something to say, and when Blaise began to answer with an "Oh, well, h—," Draco cut him off with a sharp look. "After the War ended, they said you'd been taken somewhere, and since no one heard from you, that meant it had to be someplace isolated from Magical Britain. But you don't have an accent: so still Britain somewhere. Thus, Muggles."

Harry wasn't quite convinced, but he let it slide. "Okay, next question. Is there a book on all this or something? Because I… I feel lost here." Lost didn't even _begin_ to cover how overwhelmed he was beginning to feel about the Wizarding world.

Pansy Parkinson was the one who said it. "Enough questions, Harry; the food's almost gone!"

Harry looked down at his plate, which was still half-full. He was just about to ask what Pansy meant when all of a sudden, the treacle tart vanished from his plate and the sounds of silverware being placed back on the table echoed from around the Great Hall.

Professor Dumbledore stood up and all conversation ceased. He cleared his throat. "Ahem—just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you…"

After the announcements and the school song (school symphony? school trainwreck? There wasn't even a standard speed to sing it at!), the Slytherin first-years followed Marcus Flint through the crowd of students and down to the dungeons. It seemed that they took more hidden passageways than normal ones, and once they even marched down and up a set of stairs twice in a row, but just as Harry was wondering if Flint knew where he was going, a long, blank stretch of wall appeared in front of them and the Slytherin prefect called for them to stop.

"This is the common room entrance," he said. "Don't tell anyone where it is, and I won't hang you from the North Tower by your ankles. There's a password, and it changes every month. Memorize it quickly, because hanging around for someone to let you in gives away exactly where it is. For instance, Gryffindor's is behind the painting of the Fat Lady. Anyway, with that said— _Eye of Newt!_ "

Several of the first-years groaned at the trite passphrase, but Flint just growled and ushered them in to the Common Room and off to bed. Harry spared one glance for the stone walls and low ceiling, and then passed by the fireplace and headed off to his room. Too tired to say much, or even to brush his teeth, he barely registered the other boys unpacking their trunks before he fell into bed and began to dream.

* * *

Everywhere Harry went, muted and hushed whispers followed. He couldn't always make out what they were saying, but the tones ranged from curious to suspicious to fearful. At least his Astronomy class on Wednesdays was held at night; the actual telescope work occurred at midnight, with class lecture starting a few hours in advance, right before curfew. In any event, students concerned with finding their way back before being caught out of bed were not going to stop and gossip about Harry or his scar.

Harry had thought Defense Against the Dark Arts would be his favorite class, but instead, it was just weird. The whole room smelled of garlic, up to and including the teacher, Professor Quirrel, a peculiar, turban-wearing man writing something on the front board. As Harry entered the room, the smell of garlic became so strong that he felt nauseous, and a sharp pain began developing on his forehead, right underneath his scar. He claimed the first seat he found and sat down heavily.

Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle sat next to him, and Harry reassured the Malfoy boy that he was all right, despite the increasingly unbearable pain. Abruptly, Professor Quirrel turned around and while the scent of garlic remained, Harry's forehead felt much better. Curious as to why garlic made his scar hurt, Harry sat and listened to Professor Quirrel stutter mildly about Tinkleflies and Bobblebats. Neither seemed really important, unless he found himself on holiday in a Tibetan cave, with nothing but three sickles and some xanthan gum.

"Today is going to be a good day," Draco declared over breakfast on Friday.

"Why?" asked Harry, confused.

"Double Potions. With the Gryffindors."

Harry blinked, still not understanding. "I thought you didn't like Gryffindors."

"Oh, I don't," he said, rubbing his hands with glee as he sniffed a treacle tart. "And you know who else doesn't? Snape."

"I see," said Harry, still not convinced that Gryffindors were the enemy. But if it kept him in Malfoy's good graces, he'd spout the party line. Unhappily, but he would.

Pastries and sausage didn't pair well together, but Harry didn't care, and midway through his second helping, mail came, with a note from Hedwig.

 _Dear Harry,_ it said. _I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to know how you're doing in Slytherin. —Hagrid._

"Can I borrow a quill?" Harry asked Draco.

"Sure," Draco said, retrieving one from his bag. "What for?"

"Got mail," Harry said proudly. "I'm going to reply."

Draco handed the quill to him. "Who from?"

"Hagrid."

Pansy shared a look with Blaise. "The _gamekeeper_ Hagrid?" she asked.

"Yeah." Harry frowned. "He brought me to get my stuff in Diagon Alley. He was nice to me. Invited me for tea." He looked at his new acquaintances and caught the concerned looks, rather like the ones Aunt Petunia gave vases that sat slightly off-center.

"Uh… Harry, you remember when I told you about wizarding families, and making friends with the right sort?"

Harry nodded.

"Yeah, Hagrid isn't the right sort. I mean, he's nice enough, sure," and Draco waved a hand airily, as though such things were commonplace, "but he's got a reputation. Clumsy, dim-witted; they expelled him from Hogwarts, you know, for incompetence."

"What?" Harry was nervous, now. That was a thing? Sooner or later, the authorities would expel him too, then, and it would be back to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and begging the Dursleys back to a life of—

"Got someone killed. Only avoided criminal charges because they couldn't prove anything."

"And Dumbledore," said a voice from beside them. Harry looked over to see a poorly-groomed boy forlornly spooning porridge into his mouth.

"Yes, Theo," sighed Pansy. "And Dumbledore."

"Has a lot of influence, that man does," Draco said, eyeing the High Table thoughtfully. "A lot of influence."

Harry was relieved that they wouldn't just expel anyone, but wondered what he should tell Hagrid about tea. If his friends were against it, what could he do?

When the bell rang, it was time for Potions. Luckily, it was held down in the dungeons, which would be closer to the common room, and it was taught by Harry's head of house, Professor Snape.

When class began, the Professor took roll, and when he came to Harry's name, he paused, frowning, and just stared at it, then at Harry, for an endless silence, until continuing on.

"You are all here," he began in a whisper, once the last student was counted present, "to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking. As there is more use for brains than wands in this subject, I imagine many of you will hardly believe this is magic at all… and fewer still will have the patience, or intelligence, for any kind of success. Perhaps one or two of you will appreciate the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins."

He took a pause, to let that sink in. Most of the Slytherins were waiting for something, and most of the Gryffindors were confused.

Snape turned, ever so slowly, and cast one probing and baleful eye directly at Harry. " _Potter_. What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"Er," said Harry. Pop quizzes weren't normal on the first day in the Muggle world, but then, this wasn't the Muggle world, so… "Trick question? An explosion?"

A look of intense disappointment, sadness, even, crossed Snape's face. "What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfbane?"

Across the room, Hermione raised her hand. Harry looked at her desperately, hoping Snape would see her and let him off the hook, but his eyes never left Harry's. "There is none?" he ventured, still hoping.

Snape's frown deepened, and he tried another. "Where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?"

This was getting ridiculous. "In the supply cabinet, sir?" Surely there would be one in there…?

A few giggles came from the other side of the room, but Snape silenced them with a glare. "Is something funny? Weasley?"

"N-no, sir," he stammered.

"Laughing at nothing then, are we?" Snape said and snorted. "I could have expected as much from a Weasley." The boy's face became red, and Harry felt a sort of embarrassment for him, but he wasn't going to say anything, especially not in front of a teacher; and this was what it meant to be on the side of the strong, wasn't it? You picked on the weak?

"Then go ahead," continued Snape. "Tell me what _you_ think the answers are."

"I… I don't know, sir," Ron said.

"At least Potter here _tried_ to guess," said Snape, contempt thick on his voice. "And he didn't even grow up with a magical family; what's your excuse? Didn't even think to crack open a book before coming?"

The Slytherins sniggered, this apparently having been what they were waiting for. Snape didn't turn round. "For your information," he said to the class at large, while still looking directly at Ron, "a bezoar is a stone that can cure you from most poisons; I do have some here, but they come from the stomachs of goats." He turned back to Harry. "Monkshood and wolfsbane are indeed the very same plant. And while the dunderheads in _this_ class would probably make an explosion from asphodel and wormwood, they are the two principal ingredients in the powerful sleeping potion called the Draught of the Living Death. A point for each of your right answers—and a point lost for each of your wrong ones. That goes for you too, Weasley."

Three easy points from Gryffindor, and a net gain of one for Slytherin: the members of Snape's house shared excited grins. Draco, however, was looking thoughtful. "That's got to be one of the first times Snape's ever taken points from his own house," he told Harry as they got to work making a simple potion to cure boils. "I wonder what that was all about."

Harry shrugged and began to read the instructions. "I got some right, some wrong; seemed fair."

Draco wasn't satisfied. "Slytherin is the House of politics, subtle intrigue. There was a statement in there, that's for sure, if you can just figure out what it is."


	3. Chapter 3

"Flying lessons!" exclaimed Malfoy. "Brilliant! Now, if only we could actually, you know, _get on the house teams,_ then they'd be worth something."

"Spare us, Malfoy," Pansy said, rolling her eyes. "Just wait until next year like everyone else, and try out for a spot. They'll give you something."

"Oh, come on," said Malfoy. "They need me. Did I tell you about the time I—"

"Narrowly avoided a Muggle helicopter?" supplied Blaise.

"Landed atop a jet in flight and took a nap?" Pansy suggested.

"Actually," drawled Blaise, "I think he fogged up all the windows with his breath and wrote naughty words on the glass."

Malfoy sighed a theatrical sigh. "True, all true! Oh, if you'd only been there…"

But they hadn't—no witnesses had, of course—and that just made Malfoy swear all the more that this latest version was the unvarnished truth, and he talked all the way down the front steps as they went for their first official flying lessons.

They came to a set of twenty broomsticks, and the Gryffindors filed in soon after. Then Madam Hooch, the flying instructor, entered (several Muggleborns snickered when she introduced herself, but a sharp look silenced them). Soon, the collected wizards and witches were all shouting "UP!" with varying degrees of success. Draco gave Harry a little look of jealous rivalry when their brooms jumped up at nearly the same time, but anyone who was looking (and who was?) could tell that Harry's was first, and despite himself, he couldn't resist a small smirk of satisfaction that _at last_ , this was something he was good at.

"Now, on my whistle, you're going to kick off the ground, _lightly_ , and—"

And then the round-faced boy from the train, Neville of the lost toad, lost control of the broom entirely and shot straight up into the air. While everyone else's eyes were drawn upwards to the speeding broomstick, Harry's were drawn downwards, to where a small red globe had fallen from his pocket, and was hurtling downwards with tremendous speed—

Harry darted forwards and caught it, unseen by most of the students, who were all fascinated by Neville, who was now lying in a heap on the ground thirty feet away. Madam Hooch was standing over him, and she lifted him up with one arm, telling the class imperiously, "Now, no one is to so much as _blink_ while I'm gone, or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.'"

Harry stood where he was, wondering for a panicked second whether she was serious or not—there'd been a lot of talk of expulsion lately, first about Hagrid and now this—but she couldn't possibly want everyone to _stop blinking_ , could she? And so Harry quietly made his way back to the Slytherin side and examined what he'd caught.

"Oh hey," said Draco. "I didn't know you had one of those."

"I don't," replied Harry. "Caught it from that boy when he fell. What is it?"

"It's a Remembrall," answered the pureblood. "Glows red when you've forgot stuff." He looked at it with Harry for a moment. "Guess you haven't."

There was a memory or two Harry _wished_ he could forget—eleven years, in fact—but that was about it.

"Well," Draco said, a small smile stealing across his face; "you ever wanted a Remembrall?"

"Huh?" Harry asked, startled and confused. He was still thinking about things he wanted to forget, long nights locked in a cupboard without food, going to bed hours after waking simply because the hunger was so bad that it _hurt_ to stay awake and conscious, and of his uncle's voice reverberating above the stairs, laughing at something on TV, or at him, or…

"Finders keepers," said Draco.

"Give it here," a boy said, stepping forward. It was Ron. "That's Neville's, not yours."

Harry didn't know what to say. Draco was giving Harry an appraising sort of look. Was this a test? Feeling a little sick, he put on his best sneer. It wasn't a very good one, though. "You sure?"

Ron gave him a 'screw-you' look. "Yeah. Now give it here."

Harry just held onto it, feeling more nervous by the minute. "And why's that?" He was stalling, playing for time, he didn't know what to do, couldn't look weak in front of his friends, but this was _Ron_ , who'd been so nice to him on the train, and was he really an enemy now, and Harry had really only ever been on the other side of this confrontation, and even then, he'd always buckled under to save a beating, and he _didn't know what to do!_

A second boy stepped up behind the first, an Irish fellow whom Harry remembered was named Seamus Finnegan. "Think you're special, Potter?" he said. "Just because you're _famous_?" Ron shot Seamus a look, but the boy kept on going. "You haven't been a Wizard since you were two! You wouldn't even know how to _use_ a Remembrall."

The dig at Harry's upbringing set something off inside him, and with a wordless snarl, he drew his wand, realizing all too late that he didn't know any actual spells. Suddenly, Draco, Blaise, Theodore Nott, and half of the other Slytherins were pointing wands at the Gryffindors, many or all of whom had drawn as well. Somewhere, Hermione was shouting for everyone to just _calm down_ , but no one was listening, least of all Harry, and not knowing what else to do, he mounted his broomstick and rose up a few feet into the air. Ron and Seamus did the same, Draco backing up Harry without a word, and then Harry lunged at Seamus, flying forwards at breakneck speed. The boy barely got out of the way in time, and Harry turned for another pass, flying a quick loop that wove under a rising Gryffindor broom and above another's head while coming around the way he wanted, and then he heard a voice break him out of the focus he had.

"HARRY POTTER!"

It was Madam Hooch.

" _How_ dare you! Are you a fool, boy, or just deaf? I said _not_ to turn this place into a battlefield while I was gone, and you can't resist petty rivalry for one minute? Potter, Malfoy, Weasley, and… you too," she gestured to Seamus, "with me. _Now._ "

The four followed Madam Hooch glumly up to the castle, Harry unsure if this was grounds for expulsion or not. Wands _had_ been drawn…

Madam Hooch dropped Finnegan and Weasley—Ron; he was Ron—off with a stern-looking Professor McGonagall, and brought Harry and Draco down to the dungeons directly. She didn't hesitate for a moment before knocking on the door to Snape's office, and led them in.

" _These_ two," she said, "were fighting in my class with a pair of Gryffindors, mounting broomsticks and about to come to blows." She scoffed. " _First-years._ " Trusting them to their Head of House, she left.

Snape eyed the two of them coldly. "Explain," he said, looking at Draco.

"Well, sir," said the Malfoy boy smoothly, "there was an altercation, of course; the Gryffindors started it. You know how they start everything. Insulting Mr. Potter here, and then they drew on us. Madam Hooch was gone to escort a boy to the infirmary, and they took advantage of the opportunity." He opened his mouth to say more, but Snape held up a hand for silence.

"Pathetic," the man said. "Next time, come up with a better story. Gryffindors do not take advantage of opportunities, or they would have been _in Slytherin_ , you dolt _._ " He turned to Harry. "Your version?"

"I… well, that is…"

"I see." He glanced at the Remembrall in Harry's hand. "I assume that figures into it?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said. "I, uh… they wanted it."

"Wanted it?" Snape asked. "Or wanted it back?" He stared deeply into Harry's eyes, and for a moment, Harry thought he was staring into his very soul, and then Professor Snape leaned back, a careful expression on his face. "Where did you get it?"

"I caught it."

"Interesting."

Harry scarcely dared to breathe. The man had an intense stare. At last, Professor Snape spoke. "The both of you will be serving a detention for your actions today, just one." A small smirk came across his face. "Mr. Hagrid, I believe, has a rather busy schedule; it will be with him. I doubt you will serve until November at the earliest." He scribbled something on a small piece of parchment, folded it over twice, and sealed it with a wave of his wand. "Mr. Potter; please take this to Mr. Flint, if you would."

* * *

Draco was rather put out over the detention, but when it came to light—through friends of friends, chiefly Ravenclaws—that the Gryffindors were to serve three each, all with Mr. Filch on successive Saturdays, he became very cheery, and let it be known loudly over breakfast that he and Harry had just the one, and Hagrid would probably forget it was even on the calendar by the time it came around.

Harry, for his part, had given Flint the note from Snape, and the older boy had opened it with a look of surprise, then promptly dragged Harry down onto the Quidditch pitch and begun training him. Apparently, Harry was to be the team's new seeker. And once more, Draco was in a less-than-agreeable mood. But to Harry's great surprise and relief, his friend (were they friends yet?) didn't take it out on him.

"I wish they'd let _me_ on the team," Draco had said. "At least as Beater or something. I had your back on that, yeah? They should give me your back on the team! Maybe if I'd just bashed Weasley's face in, Snape would have seen the light…"

But it was not to be, and so Harry sat at breakfast listening to Draco say the meanest things about Ron and for once, Harry didn't even think twice about it. He had a package to open.

It had come with the morning mail, but it was several feet long, and while there was no note, something told Harry that this was another part of Professor Snape's mixed messages, so he unwrapped it to reveal a—

"Nimbus Two Thousand!" Harry said, delighted.

Malfoy ran his fingers along the handle, a dreamy look on his face. "My father has one," he said. "But he's never let me ride it. Fantastic build, though; excellent turning radius. It's really the next thing in broomsticks."

So of course they all had to try it out that morning, and after everyone had taken several turns zooming around, it was lunchtime, and afterwards, Harry excused himself to the library to do some catching up on the Wizarding world, because as much as he didn't want to remember, Finnegan's words cut deep. He really _hadn't_ been a Wizard for more than a couple weeks, really.

The library was run by a stern-faced woman named Madam Pince, but she merely gave Harry a stern glance as he walked in and didn't bother him, so he wandered over to the nearest shelves and browsed the titles.

He really wanted to open the books containing advanced magic, but the first two he skimmed were incomprehensibly dense, so he settled on a nice, basic title that might help him catch up on some culture: _Hogwarts: A History._

There were a few tables open, but he spied Hermione at one, so he sat down across from her. She grabbed her bags, and with a haughty sniff, moved to the next table. Harry paused for a moment, wounded, and stood up as well. Was everyone forsaking him? He sat down across from Hermione, and while she buried her face deeper into the tome she was reading, she didn't move this time, so he opened up his book and started on the first page.

It was as dull as reading had always been for him. But at least the subject matter was interesting, though, and it had all kinds of basic information no one had ever told him (or any other Muggleborn, probably). How _did_ Muggleborns make the transition into Hogwarts? Hermione seemed to have gone the book route as well, but the rest were nowhere to be found. How would they know, for instance, (Harry looked for a fun fact here) how the point system worked? Or what subjects were taught, and what each one meant? Or what Quidditch was? Or anything else?

The history of Hogwarts, as contained in that volume, ended somewhere around the mid-1950s, so Harry didn't appear. A little disappointed, he found another volume, _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ , that was published in 1985. He leafed through the chapters, from Herpo the Foul, creator of the Basilisk, to Gellert Grindelwald of the Dark Army, to a certain fellow named Voldemort. Even looking at the name game Harry a shiver. This was the man who'd killed Harry's family? Suddenly, Harry was both very interested and very angry.

 _One of history's strongest practitioners of the Dark Arts, and certainly the greatest-ever threat to the British Isles, the wizard known as Voldemort appeared suddenly one day in British society, wielding magic never seen before or since, singlehandedly killing or Imperiusing half the top Aurors. He and his followers waged battle from the shadows for ten long years, until the fateful night of October 31, 1981, when an otherwise-ordinary assault on the Potter mansion in Godric's Hollow went awry, leaving both Mr. and Mrs. Potter slain, and the baby Harry with a curious lightning-bolt scar. To this day, no one knows precisely what happened in that house, save that the threat to Britain was ended, and the infant survived a killing curse, the only living being in history to have done so. Was this Harry, even as a child, unconsciously more skilled than Voldemort in the Dark Arts, or was he able to defeat these Arts with an inner goodness of his own? Could it have been something else entirely? For now, we can only guess, but one thing is for sure: fortune smiled upon Britain that day, and the Isles were spared._

Harry certainly didn't _feel_ powerful. And if no one else knew why Voldemort had died, well, neither did he. But it was a small comfort to him that at least, for once, everyone else was ignorant too—and that he, Harry, was special in some small way, one that was fundamentally good.


	4. Chapter 4

"So, um, Draco," Harry said as they and some of the other Slytherin first-years made their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast one day. "I gotta ask some things."

"Again?" complained Blaise. Pansy cuffed him on the back of the head and he gave her a glare but didn't protest any more.

"Go ahead," said the Malfoy boy.

"Why don't they say You-Know-Who's name?" Harry asked.

"He cursed it," Draco replied.

"He cursed… a word?"

"A name, actually. His own; that's how it works. An old spell, to find out if people are talking about you behind your back. The Dark Lord must have repurposed it. But to cast it over all of Magical Britain… if you said the name, the Death Eaters found you within minutes. Eventually, people learned to respect the man."

"Why so many titles? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, You-Know-Who, The Dark Lord, maybe others as well?"

Draco shrugged. "Fashion, I suppose. There were multiple sides during the war, you know."

Harry found himself not wanting to know where Draco's people had stood during that time.

"Using one name or the other could be a political statement," the boy continued, "but for most of us, it's really just habit. You grow up hearing history one way, and then it just sticks." He paused for a moment. "You probably shouldn't ask questions like that too loudly, though. Politics can be… divisive."

"Maybe we could draw him up a list of rules of etiquette?" offered Pansy gently.

"Please," said Harry.

"I suppose we could," said Draco. "Enough to keep the awkwardness at bay around members of other Houses, at least."

A list never materialized in written form, but over breakfast, Harry was inundated with a litany of rules, and he felt even more awkward obeying them, no matter how much the others claimed it was second nature to them. Hold the fork in the wrong hand, continental-style. This hand was for muggles, the knife went in the other one. Don't leave your wand out on the table while eating, it's a legal provocation to duel the person across from you if he suspects you just poisoned his drink. And for the love of Merlin, if someone sneezes, do not say "Bless you". You'll just sound like some poor ignorant Muggle.

Harry kept visiting the library during his off hours, trying desperately to brush up on the culture of his new home. Maybe he'd never fit in, but he could stand out less—or at least, stand out for being Harry the Boy-Who-Lived, not for being Harry the Muggle-raised Halfblood. So he read newspapers (apparently someone named Celestina Warbeck was in a highly public legal battle over a previous marriage whose divorce papers may or may not have arrived in time from a foreign country whose ceremony may or may not be recognized by certain authorities anyway), he read a how-to guide for Muggleborns trying to acclimatize themselves (this book had the most promise but delivered the least, since it was written by a pureblood witch and contained such useless advice as "be prepared to be amazed by wizard technology—leave behind your steamboats and telegraphs, and prepare for the broom and floo!"), and Harry read history books.

Never one to ask questions in class, Harry wasn't about to start now, but he noticed that he was one of the only ones who actually paid any attention to Professor Binns. Sure, the man was dull, but even hearing about goblin rebellions provided so much context to the rest of Harry's magical experience. No wonder the employees of Gringotts had been so cold to Harry; how else would they treat the wunderkind who was responsible for dismantling the Death Eaters? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hadn't exactly been pro-goblin, but he wasn't anti-goblin either, and anything that shortened the Wizarding Civil War must have been an unwelcome event in their eyes. And the history of house-elves was particularly fascinating. Apparently they were descended from a race of wood elves (which in turn may or may not have been related to some theorized ancestral elf-goblin hybrid), and while their magic was largely orthogonal to humans', there had been some recorded instances of elfin wand usage in the early Middle Ages, before the subjugation of the minor races. Hermione seemed particularly interested at this part, but then again, she took copious notes in every class.

Speaking of Hermione, she was in the library every day as well. For the first two days, she insisted on moving tables whenever he sat down, but after day three, she grudgingly allowed him to sit across from her on the first try. Harry noticed that she read books on every subject, but mostly on spellwork. He had the momentary thought that she would have been a nice friend, not just for her temperament but because she was so good at everything, and a voice inside his head noted drily how Slytherin a thought that was, but on the whole, he was probably happier with Draco and the others on his side. In fact, he realized with a feeling of both alarm and heart-melting warmth, he hadn't had to escape from any bullies since arriving. No, people seemed afraid of _him_. They skirted around him in the halls, most didn't make eye contact, and, well, Hermione here was exhibit A, wasn't she?

Harry caught sight of the title that she was reading. _Curses and their Counters: A Practical Guide._ That reminded him of something Professor Quirrel had mentioned in class. "So, what is the Curse of the Bogies, anyway?" he asked her. When Hermione didn't respond, Harry repeated the question, but then left it alone. He kept reading his magazine (apparently the Weird Sisters were a troupe of men?), and it wasn't until much later, when Hermione was on her way out, that she said to him something that sounded like " _Malefactum_ ," and she was completely gone before he realized it was probably the incantation for that spell.

* * *

Harry and Hermione didn't talk much during their encounters in the library, but he took her continued presence as a positive sign. She had been slightly insufferable on the train, but ultimately, she wasn't malicious, and Harry couldn't help but feel for her. Surely she had to have noticed she had no friends, and even if that didn't bother her, well, he'd been in that situation himself plenty often.

So it was with a bit of worry in his heart that he noticed one day that Hermione was nowhere to be found. She was in the Library every day, without fail, but now she wasn't here; come to think of it, she hadn't been in History class that day, either. Maybe she was just sick or something? It was a poor excuse, but Harry couldn't think of anything else that it could be.

But then he didn't see her at the Great Hall at dinner that evening. _I hope she's all right,_ Harry thought _._ Despite her being a Gryffindor, he kind of liked the girl. She was a little different from the others, and if she got picked on sometimes, it only made Harry think of himself in some ways.

"You all right, Harry?" asked Draco, no doubt wondering why he was so forlornly staring at the Gryffindor table, of all things.

Harry managed a weak grin. "Yeah. Fine."

He was saved from having to explain himself any further when the doors burst open and in came the screaming figure of Professor Quirrel.

"Troll! Troll! In the dungeons! Thought you ought to know." And the man fainted on the spot.

The Great Hall erupted into chaos, children screaming and dropping their food, heading for the door (as though it were any safer outside than in).

"SILENCE!" roared the voice of Albus Dumbledore, and the student body came to attention. "Prefects, lead your houses to the dormitories. Teachers, follow me to the dungeons."

The Houses lined up and filed through the doors, and once they'd left the Great Hall well behind, Marcus Flint held up a hand for them to stop. "As a few of you noticed," and here he glared at a couple particularly insistent sixth-years, "those troll-infested dungeons are obviously where our Common Room is. We can't stay in the Great Hall, as we're under orders to leave, and so we'll go to the Common Room as told—but I think we'll just get lost on some of the upper floors for an hour first. You know how the castle likes to change."

A couple of the younger Slytherins smiled in appreciation, and Flint directed them to ascend the next staircase they could find.

It was about fifteen minutes later, somewhere on one of the upper levels (they'd just passed a girls' bathroom), when a horrid smell came down the corridor behind them. Now, there were smells, and there were bad smells, and Harry being the one to do most of the chores at his aunt and uncle's house had a certain familiarity with both types, but Aunt Petunia never even let the garbage smell this bad; in fact, the only smells this pungent tended to come from the dumpsters from which Harry had never scavenged dinner no matter how hungry he'd ever got (although not for lack of temptation).

Someone screamed.

Immediately, Flint let out a crack from his wand, shouted for the Slytherins to follow him down the corridor, and _quickly_ , and the entire House chased off after him.

"Wait," Harry said a moment later, just realizing the scream had come from behind them, not from among them, and grabbed the arm of the nearest person he could find. "There's someone in that bathroom." He dashed around the corner.

"In there? At this time? I really don' think—oh, Merlin's sake—" and Pansy and Draco came around the corner behind him.

The scream issued again, this time louder, and the sound of something breaking echoed from within the bathroom.

"Just leave it," Draco said, his voice getting desperate. "There's nothing we can do. _Do you want to die?!_ "

But Harry had already opened the door to the bathroom, and inside was a colossal twelve-foot humanoid, gray and small-headed, smashing sinks and stalls one by one with a man-sized club.

This time it was Pansy who grabbed Harry's arm. "Come on!" she hissed in his ear. "You absolute _idiot!_ You're going to get us killed!"

But Harry wasn't having any of it. There was someone in there, he was sure of it. What else was the troll going for? Overpowering Pansy, he took another step into the room, and caught sight of Hermione Granger, pressed against the far wall, a look of horror fixed upon her face. As the troll raised its club to strike, Harry grabbed a broken piece of sink near him and lobbed it at the back of the thing's head. Slowly, the troll turned, a confused expression on its face, wondering how the little girl had hit it on the back when she was so clearly facing its front, only to discover a second set up little humans on its other side. It took a long look and grinned.

"Damn it!" Draco said, and he and Pansy dragged Harry out into the corridor. The troll advanced on them slowly, and once it had backed them against the wall—they could outrun its legs, but the reach of its long arms kept them from going around—it raised its club once more, and Pansy shrieked and covered her eyes with both hands.

"Noceo!" came a voice from beside them, and a thin jet of black light struck the troll directly on the fist. When nothing appeared to have happened, it simply grunted and chuckled, but a moment later, it stared at its own hand, and everyone present realized that the first two fingers on its hand were dissolved clean away. Next to him, Draco gasped, and Harry took no time in repeating whatever incantation the stranger had uttered.

Harry's aim was relatively good, and another bolt took off two more fingers.

"Stop!" Draco called out, panicked. "Stop! You're hurting yourself!" He swatted at Harry's wand arm, which was beginning to bleed. Then, giving up on distraction, Draco physically wrested the wand out of Harry's hand and led him away from the troll's side.

One more Noceo, and the last finger went; the troll was still staring confusedly at its own hand when, nothing holding it up any longer, the club fell of its own accord and smashed into the troll's head. Poleaxed, it fell to the floor in a heap with a giant crash.

Harry leaped forwards over the body. "Are you all right?" he asked the bathroom's occupant.

"I-I think so," Hermione squeaked.

"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me," said the stranger, and Harry turned to find that it was Theodore Nott, the long-haired boy from breakfast.

"What?"

"You risked us all for _this_ Muggle?"

"She's not a Muggle," protested Harry. "She's a witch!"

"Close enough," spat Theo, but Draco wasn't having any of it. "Politics later," he said, livid. "Especially yours, _Harry_. Now let's get out of here before anyone notices, _all right?_ "

Harry barely had enough time to send Hermione one pitying glance before his friends dragged him out of the hallway and through a secret passageway into a tunnel down that brought them to the dungeons. It was fortunate they left when they did, too, as Harry heard the heavy sounds of adult feet in the hall behind them as soon as they made it down the tunnel.


	5. Chapter 5

"What the Hell," said Draco, "was that?"

"Should I just have let her die?" protested Harry hotly.

"Yes!" all three Slytherins said at once.

They had made it back to the boys' dormitory. Harry stood and fumed, nursing his arm (he'd had to wash the blood off; his own, it seemed, but there was no visible cut, which was strange), but he didn't have anything to say to that. How could they even _think_ such things?

"For a _Mudblood?_ " asked Theodore. "You turned back _for that?_ "

"Well obviously I didn't _know_ who it was when I turned round!" Harry exclaimed. He didn't care how many bridges he was burning right now, this just _wasn't right_. Good people did good things, that was that.

"No," Theo said, disgust heavy on his voice, "but then you stayed and _got the thing's attention_ once you did know."

"Sweetie," said Pansy, "is there something we don't know about?"

"Because first you say you don't like Muggles, then you go and risk _our_ lives rescuing one!" This time it was Draco, and to say he wasn't happy was an understatement.

"She's not a Muggle, she's a witch!"

"Same difference!"

Harry shook his head, wondering how to get through to them. "You didn't have to come with me," he told them.

"And leave the Boy-Who-Lived to get eaten by a troll? Get real. _You're. Important._ "

Draco and Harry looked at each other, breathing heavily from the stress of the argument.

"I'm serious," Draco said. "You, me, Pansy, even Theo here—we mean things. We're all important people for one reason or another. Heirs of Houses, faces of the next generation, and the next in a long line of magical tradition, especially you, the last surviving member of House Potter. You can't just go charging off like that without weighing the consequences first. Someone could've gotten hurt. It's just not worth it. _You're_ not worth it. Not to us, anyway."

Harry found he didn't have anything to say to that. Well, he did, starting with how important Hermione was, both to him and others, and ending with how a witch was a witch, and that was that, but he was floored by the sentiment. Here was someone, who by all rights should hex him into next Tuesday and flush his head down a toilet for dragging him into danger, going against his will, and then Harry had the gall to talk back and here was Draco telling him he was _important?_ No one had ever done that before, in any circumstance, ever.

"I… I don't really know what to say to that," Harry said, after a moment.

"It's all right," Pansy said. "Apology accepted, okay?"

A knock sounded at the door. "Get down here," growled Flint. "House meeting in five."

The entirety of Slytherin House assembled in the Common Room, and exactly five minutes later, Professor Snape walked in, favoring one leg. He leaned heavily against a couch.

"Someone," he began, closing his eyes and breathing, "some absolute, disposable _idiot_ in this school is playing with forces they don't understand. Can anyone explain why the tonight's troll—which has since been dealt with—was found with a fingerless hand?"

No one said anything.

"I shall remind you fools," said Snape, "that trolls _regenerate_. And it was found, with a _fingerless hand._ The sort of injury that comes only from daylight sun, which can't be found inside a Scottish castle during evening, or Dark magic, which _can_ be found in the employ of reckless students."

Still no one said anything.

"The student with whom the troll was found is refusing to say anything, and is a personal favorite of—" his voice dripped with contempt here—" _some_ teachers. As such, there will be eager search for another culprit. If I were to find that there were, say, any _irregularities_ in following the evacuation procedures tonight, then I would have no choice but to conclude that it were one among you. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," the students all said.

"Then get out of my sight," he said, and left limping through the front door.

Once everyone had dispersed, Draco pulled Theo and Harry aside. "Really, guys?"

Theo shrugged, unrepentant. "Degenerative Hex. Would you have preferred to die, instead? I wasn't the one that dragged us into that."

"Is that why my arm was bleeding?" asked Harry.

"Yes," said Draco, "and now you'll be forever that much weaker. I doubt the blood loss was much, but if you make a habit of it, you'll waste away for sure."

"Why do you think they call it Dark magic?" asked Theo. "Still beats dying. What were you going to do, _levitate_ the club away?" He scoffed. "Please."

"Come on," said Draco, shaking his head. "Just keep your head down for a few days and don't mention this, okay? _Both_ of you." Theo shrugged again, but Harry followed the Malfoy boy, and hoped nothing permanent came of this.

* * *

Hermione was two days before showing up at the library, but when she did, it was with a shy glance, and then she sat down at Harry's table. He felt like he might startle her if he said anything, so he kept very still, his eyes glued to _Magical Menagerie_ 's chapter on the Owl Post.

"Hey," she said, weakly.

"Hey," returned Harry.

"Er… thanks for…"

"Yeah," said Harry. "No problem. And thanks for not mentioning… you know…"

"Yeah."

There was silence after that. Harry found himself having to reread passages two and three times, he was so distracted.

"It must be hard," said Hermione, "you and Draco. He doesn't seem to like me very much."

Harry shrugged. "Yeah."

"Well," she said, "thanks anyway."

He didn't want to leave, but he couldn't concentrate much on the reading, so he ended up staring at the book, until he realized it was becoming obvious he hadn't flipped the page for over five minutes, and neither had she. They both realized it abruptly and flipped the pages at almost the same time. Both turned a little red in embarrassment, and they kept their faces in their reading after that.

Constant Quidditch practice kept Harry's next library sessions short, but on the eve of the match, he received a quiet "Good luck tomorrow" from Hermione, which played in his ear all evening.

* * *

The Quidditch match was largely uneventful, which was nice; he didn't think he could deal with any more excitement after that troll. He even managed to catch the Snitch, which wasn't too surprising, since the Gryffindor team had fielded one of their usual Chasers in the Seeker spot, no one having tried out successfully for the position.

The after-party was something special, with several of the seventh-years brewing special drinks for the younger students (the benefits of having the Potions Master as your head of house being obvious here). The only good one in Harry's opinion was something called Fizzmoth Pop, but the boy who brewed it proudly proclaimed that he had a patent pending from the Ministry on it, and that he was going to go into business mass-producing it when he graduated in the Spring. Harry thought it sounded like a good idea, and sipping on the buzzing drink, he thought he might even buy a few if they became commercially available. If he could ever access his full account at Gringotts, anyway.

Harry got so many congratulations and handshakes from members of House Slytherin that it seemed like his first day all over again, and at one point he had to duck to the restroom just to make sure his eyes weren't watering too much from the emotion of it all, and when he got back, Malfoy even offered to let him stay at his place during the holiday break.

"Of course," Harry said immediately. Draco smirked and a couple other students who had been eyeing Harry predatorily slunk away, disappointed.

"Excellent," he said, clapping his hands together. "Father will be so delighted. You'll have to come too," he told Pansy and Blaise. Theo looked up for moment. "And you too, Nott," Draco said, his voice slightly less than excited.

Pansy leaned over to Harry. "And do look nice," she said. "You'll get away with a lot, being the Boy-Who-Lived, but a little effort goes a long way, okay?"

Harry thought he always looked nice, but then again, this was Pansy, with her eternally-perfect hair and twelve rules of cutlery. He told himself simply to prepare for the male version of Aunt Petunia, and if there were no Uncle Vernon or Dudley in the picture, well, then it had to be better than his home life, right?


	6. Chapter 6

Christmas break came fast. Harry left his Muggle jeans at Hogwarts—even though students sometimes wore them casually for comfort around the school, Wizard clothing was going to be a necessity when visiting an old Pureblood family. A few sets of robes would do, and he didn't own a proper Wizarding hat, but Blaise told him that was mostly for witches anyway these days, so it would be perfectly all right. Hedwig, his wand, and some schoolbooks went into his trunks also—plus the Remembrall, which he remembered with a small twinge of guilt was probably his now.

"Ready?" asked Draco, peeking in on Harry, who had just about finished packing.

"Yeah," Harry replied, looking around at his sparse possessions: he hadn't brought much to Hogwarts with him, and was leaving even less behind.

"Great. You and I will go down directly; the others will meet with their families first and Floo over in a few days. Meet you at the front gates in ten."

Once at the castle gates, Filch crossed them off a list he carried, and let each student through one by one. Horseless carriages led them down to the train station, where the Hogwarts Express waited to carry them back to London.

The train ride seemed shorter than the last time, and when he stepped out onto the London station with Draco, a blond witch and wizard were there to meet them.

"Oh, Draco, so nice to see you," said the woman, as they both hugged Draco. Then the man turned to Harry. "You must be the famous Harry Potter," he said, with an appraising look.

"Yes, sir," said Harry, suddenly extremely nervous. If he didn't make a good impression here, would he be invited back? All too late he remembered that he and Draco still had unresolved differences from Halloween, and was this some way of getting back at him, would he find himself turned into a hatrack in two days' time? Uncle Vernon had gotten into some gambling debt one time—the only time he and Petunia had ever argued—and then he'd had to deal with some men who looked just like Draco's father looked now, just Muggles, and maybe this was all some sort of trap to get back at him for being kind to Hermione—

"I've heard so much about you," the man continued.

Harry gulped. Here it was. He tried not to look around. Were there any witnesses? There had to be witnesses. Right?

"I'm Draco's father, Lucius. This is my wife, Narcissa." He shook Harry's hand. "You do your family proud, I'm told."

"Er… thanks." Harry was a little confused, now.

"Are we all ready?" Narcissa—Mrs. Malfoy—asked.

Draco and Harry nodded.

"Good," said the elder Malfoy, and they all linked hands.

A rushing sound and twisting sensation contorted, bent, and ripped their bodies through some sort of magical vortex and the world around them spun; it was all over in an instant, and Harry collapsed to the ground, coughing. "I—ih—what?"

Draco offered him a hand and pulled him up. "Apparition," he said, and Harry noticed that his surroundings had changed. He didn't know why teleportation had a different name in the magical world, but maybe the latter word's etymology was too recent to be common in the Wizarding world.

"Right," said Harry.

"You'll be all right in a few moments, dear," said Narcissa kindly, and with a wave of her wand, Harry's trunks began following Lucius.

Not too far off from where they stood, a magnificent manor rose above a vast lake, forests encircling all round, and a flock of pink and yellow birds escaped gracefully into the treeline as Mr. Malfoy passed them.

"So this is home," said Draco. "What do you think?"

It was, simply put, wondrous. Harry had never seen such wealth in his life. The displays of it weren't ostentatious; they simply _were_. Ostentation was gold, diamond, conspicuous jewels; the Malfoys had none of that, or if it did, it wasn't on display. But their home was big, old, and museum-like. Every floor was marble, every wall was stone; the outside was clean, the inside cleaner. Harry wondered who did all the work, for there was no evidence of servants. House-elves, probably. The Malfoys looked like they would own a few.

To one side of the manor, opposite the lake, was a full-scale Quidditch pitch, and inside, Mr. Malfoy had dedicated two rooms to a broom collection.

"Do you like them?" Lucius asked him as they passed it by. "I hear you're quite the flier."

"I, uh… yes, absolutely," said Harry breathlessly, fascinated by all the different models. Comets, Cleansweeps, Nimbuses, even some ancient-looking ones that Harry had never heard of, all stood slowly rotating in place on display stands in cases of transparent glass.

The blond-haired man smiled. "Everyone should collect something, I find," he said. "It helps one to keep perspective when life gets difficult."

"He's always handing out advice like that," Draco said in Harry's ear as they made their way down the hall. "Managing the family estate isn't as easy as it looks."

Even if the Malfoys didn't have any investments elsewhere—which they probably did, and which were probably worth more than the manor and its contents combined—the sheer scale of this place would have been a challenge for any one man to keep track of. They had passed at least three spiral staircases, twelve spare rooms, and two other large hallways so far, and they hadn't even gotten halfway through the castle.

"Normally we'd take the internal floo," Lucius was saying, "but I thought I'd give you the grand tour. Your room will be up this way," here he gestured to a large staircase with one ringed hand, "and dinner will be served right ahead. Draco will show you to your bedroom, and you can both come down once you've washed."

Draco and Harry nodded and made their way up the steps, Harry's luggage now following him up the steps and through a side door to where he would be staying.

"This is yours," Draco told him. "Mine's right next door."

Harry opened the door and stopped at the threshold, too taken aback to set foot inside. "How did you…"

"What?"

How did he ever leave this place to come to Hogwarts? The whole dorm room, with all four beds, was smaller than Harry's guest room alone. Heck, this was bigger than _Dudley's_ room—by a factor of two. "Where I grew up," Harry said reverently, still in awe at the amenities of Malfoy Manor, "I think this nightstand wouldn't even have fit in my cupboard."

"Your cupboard?"

"Yeah," Harry said offhandedly, still admiring the ornately carved—and massive!—furniture. "I lived in one for about a decade." He set foot inside and ran his fingers over what looked something like a flatter hat rack. "What's this?"

"Owl perch. But wait—you lived in a cupboard?"

Harry turned and shrugged. "Muggles."

Draco whistled softly under his breath. "I never knew."

"Whatever." Harry hadn't survived so long by thinking about his misfortune at every turn. "Where's the sink? Let's wash up and eat."

* * *

The food at Malfoy Manor was excellent. Harry had thought Hogwarts served a good dish—mostly because he could have second and third helpings—but now he understood why Draco sometimes turned his nose up at food. Quite simply, this was excellent. Everything was better with magic—literally, everything—and Harry couldn't believe he'd every missed out on tastes like this before. Minestrone soup, shepherd's pie, freshly pressed apple juice, and churned butter on a baguette: the best meal he'd ever had.

"So," Lucius said between courses, "how was your life before Hogwarts? Must not be as fun without magic."

"Not really," Harry said. "I imagine your elves live better lives than I did."

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "Surely not."

"They seem happy here, sir."

"No need to be so formal, Harry; you're here as my guest. But to your point, yes; that's the nature of house-elves. They enjoy their service."

"Precisely," said Harry.

"Ah," said Lucius, understanding. "A pity, for sure. There may be no way for the Wizarding community to make up for the past, but perhaps some words from you, if they reached the right ears, might prevent future tragedies of this nature…?"

Harry looked up sharply. "What do you mean?" he asked. There was something that could've been _done,_ if things had just been caught in time?

Narcissa gave Lucius a disapproving sort of look, probably over bringing politics to the dinner table with a guest over, and Mr. Malfoy just smiled softly and said, "Many things are possible, when two parties want the same thing. If anything in particular comes up, I'll let you know."

"I would appreciate that," Harry said. "Please." Lucius didn't hide a smirk.

During the rest of dinner, they made small talk amongst themselves, largely Draco (and to some extent Harry) talking about Hogwarts, although it soon became clear that Draco corresponded almost daily with his own parents, so there wasn't much to say that hadn't already been said; still, the Malfoys seemed to enjoy the boys' stories and even added some of their own, as several teachers (most notably Professor Binns) had still been teaching at the school even in their days. If anything, the way they told it, he'd been even more boring back then.

"That's where I met my lovely wife," said Lucius, smiling and taking her hand. "She sat across from me in Third Year, and I don't think I learned a thing all term."

"Honey," Mrs. Malfoy told him, "I don't think anyone learned anything that year—or any other year, as a matter of fact." Draco and Harry couldn't help but agree.

As the elves cleared away the last plates, Harry fought back a yawn.

"If you're tired, Harry dear, you can go upstairs," said Narcissa. "I'm sure we'll have more time to talk in the morning. Draco, if you'd show him the way?"

"Thank you," said Harry, and retired to bed. His last thought before he passed out was that this, finally, was how a family should work.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Some of the chapters posted (viz., 2, 4) didn't result in the story's Update Date changing. I'm trying to figure out why, but in the meantime, if you want to keep abreast of new developments, please follow the story using the follow/favorite button up top, and you'll get notified when a new chapter is posted. Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, Draco and Harry went out to the Quidditch Pitch for some one-on-one practice. Mr. Malfoy had graciously allowed his son to borrow his Nimbus 2000, which meant the two of them were on an even playing field for equipment, and to Harry's surprise, Malfoy was nearly as good as he was. Not that he shouldn't have been, to think back to their mutual flying lessons, and in fact the sole male heir to a Most Noble and Ancient House should be expected to be decent on a broom when compared to Harry who hadn't been a wizard for more than a year, but it was surprising to him nonetheless. Perhaps the House Quidditch team really should have brought Draco on.

After lunch, they trudged back indoors (Narcissa was there to greet them with Cleaning Charms and lemonade), and after the noonday meal, Blaise Zabini came over via the Floo Network. Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott didn't play Quidditch, but a pretty blonde girl named Tracy Davis did, plus Crabbe and Goyle of course, and so the six of them played a small match until early afternoon, when they moved on to other things.

Two days before Christmas Eve, the whole lot of them went shopping at Diagon Alley (and a small, dark offshoot of it called Knockturn Alley, a place where Narcissa kept them close, and which contained some seedy characters but was otherwise no trouble to them). Harry picked up an Ever-Inked Quill for Draco (who was always writing letters to his father), a Self-Cleaning Brush for Pansy (strands of her thick hair kept getting caught in her old one), chocolate frogs for Blaise (who didn't love chocolate?), a biography of Gellert Grindelwald for Theodore (he seemed the type to enjoy it), and while the Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy probably didn't need or expect anything, to show his appreciation he got them a pair of black leather-bound books all the same (the most useful thing he could think of, really, except maybe spare parchment, but this seemed somehow more elegant). And lastly, he picked up one more package, but if anyone had asked him whom it was for, he'd have said it was for them, just to forestall the questions, because he wasn't sure if they'd appreciate him getting Hermione a gift.

Finally, Christmas arrived. Snow hadn't reached this far south this winter, and wasn't predicted to, but some form of massive cooling charm must have been placed upon the grounds some time ago, because when Harry woke up, all was white outside his window. He grinned wide, and then had a sudden start when he saw that the foot of his bed was covered in wrapped packages. Maybe the House-Elves had brought them in?

The first one was from Pansy. _Charm and Charms: Magic for the Socially Conscious_. Harry might have been a little offended if he hadn't specifically asked her for something like this months ago, and he vowed to start reading it that night.

The second package was from Draco. Broom polish and a twig-trimmer. "I can't believe," said Draco, coming in, "that whoever gave you the broomstick—and let's face it, it was probably Snape—didn't include any maintenance kit."

"Thanks, Draco," Harry said, grinning. "How'd you like your gifts?"

"They were great." He looked about. "I don't write _that_ many letters, do I?"

"Well…"

They both laughed.

"Fine. But my father _did_ really need to hear about some of those things."

Blaise had gotten Harry a box of Chocolate Frogs as well (the irony!), while Theo had provided him with a handwritten list of spells with a note in the margins saying "Just a few of my favorites."

Last was a pair of items from Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy; the first of these turned out to be a falconer's glove specifically for owls, enchanted to call Hedwig to him when he wanted if she was near, while the second was a book titled _A Century of Secrecy_ , which was some kind of historical analysis from the late 1700s.

The morning went by quickly (Draco tried, unsuccessfully, to teach Wizard's Chess to Harry), and in the early afternoon, their friends arrived to enjoy the day. An impromptu snowball fight broke out, without magic, naturally, since they were still on holiday, and after one too many facefuls of snow, Harry sat down to simply watch, a giant smile on his face. This was among the most fun he'd had in, well, ever. The longer he watched, though, the more his cheer started to fade.

Pansy sat down next to him. "All right, Harry?" she asked.

"Yeah…" he said.

"What's on your mind?"

"Just thinking, ya know. About how things are. How they might have been different."

"Oh?"

Harry waved a hand towards the courtyard, where Crabbe had just clipped Blaise in the jaw with a well-timed throw. "This could've been me. Years ago, all my life." He shrugged. "I was born to two wizards, wasn't raised by them. It just doesn't seem right."

Pansy laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I know, Harry. I know."

* * *

The days until they would return to school flew by, and on the day before term started, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy brought them down to King's Cross Station in London for a heartfelt goodbye. Harry waited a respectful distance until the Malfoys were done saying goodbye to their son (which, admittedly, took a while—much longer, for sure, than the Dursleys had ever taken to send him anywhere, eager as they had always been to get rid of him) and then hesitantly approached.

"Er… excuse me, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked.

"Yes, Harry?"

"I was wondering, sir… if-if I might talk to you?" His nerves were getting to him already. Oh, why couldn't this be like flying? He never had any troubles with that.

"Of course," Mr. Malfoy said, leaning on his cane with a gentle smile. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, I, that is…" He didn't know how to say it, so it came out in a rush. "Can I stay with you for the summer? I don't want to be a bother, and if it's not too much trouble, you know, I can even pay my own room and board, it's just my family, and I was wondering, if you'd be ever so kind, please—?"

Mr. Malfoy seemed surprised for just a moment, and then his smile returned, warmer than before. "Harry," he said, "Harry; House Malfoy is generous to its friends. There's no need to pay a Knut; you can stay with us as long and as often as you like."

Harry couldn't keep the emotion off of his face. "Thank you," he said, clasping Mr. Malfoy's hand. "Thank you."

"I'll get started on the arrangements soon enough," Lucius replied. "It's just a matter of paperwork to arrange it."

Narcissa gave her husband an unsure look.

"Simple paperwork," he said, maybe a little too smoothly, and she remained unconvinced. But Harry didn't notice that last exchange, for he had already left the platform, nearly bounding with joy, and Hedwig hooted in alarm as he took a turn too sharply on his way to the Hogwarts Express.

The train ride was the same as usual, except the others caught Harry staring aimlessly out the window once or twice, an absent smile on his face.

"Hey, numbskull," said Theo, looking up from a game of Exploding snap, "you gonna tell us what's up, or not?"

"Huh?" Harry said.

"It's just, you look like the victim of a Cheering Charm gone wrong," Blaise explained.

"Oh. No, it's nothing," said Harry, and tried to pass his behavior off with a smile, but of course that only made things worse.

"You know," said Draco, "if you keep doing it, it'll get stuck like that."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course it will."

"Once," Draco said, keeping a perfectly straight face, "we Flooed my grandfather to St. Mungo's for it. Healer said it was the worst case she'd ever seen. Five inches of pure, unadulterated grin."

"Uh-huh."

"You don't believe me?" Draco huffed. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."

Harry shrugged, and noticed a moment later that something felt funny. "Oh no," he said, looking around, and feeling his frozen face to general laughter. "Which one of you did that?"

No one owned up to it, but Pansy slyly offered to show him the countercurse—a variant of the counter to the Full Body-Bind—if he'd let her copy his History of Magic notes. Harry suspected she was either the culprit or had put them up to it, but she could have just been taking advantage of the situation and he couldn't prove anything, so he let it slide and admitted that he'd been pranked, no matter how much Draco insisted that no, such things really happened in life, even if he couldn't remember precisely which family member was the one who'd experienced the same thing that one time.

All too soon, the ride ended, and it was back to the dormitories. No sooner had they set foot in the castle than a gruff voice called out from behind them, "There yeh' are!"

Draco and Harry turned to see the very large form of the Groundskeeper, Hagrid. He seemed to stand even taller than usual, and his shadow covered them both completely. The effect was only slightly undone by the massive pink umbrella he was carrying, no matter what things Harry had seen that umbrella do.

"Don' think I haven't fergotten about yer detentions," he said darkly. "Or if I have, that I didn' also remember. Somethin' 'bout a Remembrall and and Flying Class. So nex' Friday, at eight, I'll be needin' yeh at my hut." He gave the both of them an intimidating stare, and then marched out.

As soon as Hagrid had left earshot, Draco burst out laughing. "That umbrella! Is he serious?"

"Very," said Harry. "It's magical, I think. Hexed my cousin Dudley with it once. It was actually kind of hilarious, really."

"Really?" said Draco, and Harry relayed to him the story of his pig-like cousin finally gaining the tail to accompany all his weight, and the two of them amused themselves ridiculing overweight muggles all the way to the common room, where Harry excused himself to find the one person who hadn't been invited to the Malfoys' over break.

"I got something for you," Harry whispered once Madam Pince's back was turned. He slid a small box across the table (he wasn't going to risk wrapping paper in the library) and watched Hermione's mouth make a little 'o' of surprise. Harry gestured for her to open it.

Inside the box was a magnifying glass. When she read the instructions that explained how it would translate text across languages for the sight of the user, her mouth fell further open, and she simply stared at Harry, eventually summoning the presence of mind to mouth _"thank you"_. Harry now knew how he looked when he'd opened his presents, having not really expected anything from anybody and now finding out they'd spared him more than a Sickle and a passing thought.

Harry smiled. _You're welcome,_ he thought. Everyone needed a friendly gesture once in a while.


	8. Chapter 8

His dreams later that night were terrible. Sometimes he would have bad ones, mostly concerning cramped quarters and his uncle's belt, but something was different this time. For one, he knew instantly that he was dreaming, and that something was very, very wrong.

In dreams, one normally floated in a sort of haze. Any details the brain hadn't filled in, such as why he was where he was or how he'd gotten there, were simply not questioned. Things simply happened and were accepted; there was no impulse to disbelief. Any hint of curiosity was instantly satisfied; every question provided its own answer. Occasionally there was discomfort, but only of the phantom sort, nothing acute.

So when Harry found himself cold and alone, with no idea what was going on, that's when he knew his dreams had taken him someplace not to be spoken of.

He was in a forest of some sort, mists all around, their little droplets hovering above the goosebumps on his skin, that little of it that was exposed.

The rest of him was covered in a dark cloak, not the sort that wizards wore for fashion, but a thicker travelling cloak to keep out the elements; and this one buzzed lightly with extra enchantments. Harry didn't know why he could suddenly feel the magic in the air around him, but he could, and a dull ache on the back of his head kept throbbing. He looked to both sides, as if searching for something; he cocked his head to the side, listening, but caught no disturbance.

Next thing he knew, he was kneeling on the forest floor, a shockingly white creature before him, radiating a strange and fading sense of calm. Harry leaned forwards, unbidden, and produced a knife from within his cloak, carving a line into the thing's flesh. Immediately, a silver trail formed down from the cut, running down his fingers, feeling at once smooth and thick, no matter how his eyes indicated that the blood should be much thinner from the way it flowed.

His fingers moved of their own accord, rising to his lips, touching to his tongue, and he tasted sensations indescribable: every taste, every craving he'd ever had, filled, including ones he didn't even know he had, sweet and wholesome and pleasant and smooth, utterly satisfying, and _he wanted more._ More, more more, he placed both hands on the ground so that he could get his whole head down at once, the better to consume faster, but as he got closer to the open delicious wound, the widening river of glistening silver was stable enough to form a reflection and he caught sight of two briefly-snakelike eyes staring back at him from within his own sockets, in a face that wasn't his, which he didn't have time to recognize because the pain was building to levels unbearable, and maybe if he just drank a little more, it would all go away, that soothing drink to ease his burning pain—

Harry screamed.

* * *

"I doubt it," Draco said over breakfast the next morning. "Seers don't remember their prophecies."

"I know what I saw," maintained Harry.

They had, at Harry's insistence, taken their own end of the table all to themselves, and no matter how many strange looks they got from the others, or how much people suspected they were plotting something, Draco insisted on some space, as Silencing Charms alone couldn't stop lip-reading, an art form in which he and several other prominent Slytherins had received substantial training.

"Sounds like a bad nightmare."

"No," Harry said, shaking his head, "I've had nightmares before; this wasn't like them. It felt too real, you know? Like there were too many details for my brain to make up. Every other dream, you wake up and notice all the questions you should've asked; not this one. Not at all."

"Then it _certainly_ isn't a prophetic dream, because child seers are extremely rare, and if you were one, you'd be having them all the time."

Harry sighed and speared a piece of toast with his fork. "Then how could I describe a unicorn so accurately? I've never seen one before, let alone its blood."

Draco was silent for a couple moments. "I don't know. That's the part that troubles me. Your symptoms sound like Legilimency, but there's no way anyone with access to our dorm has mastered it, aside from Professor Snape…" He trailed off.

"You think Professor Snape did some dream-magic to give me visions of a unicorn at night?"

"Mind-magic, actually, it's a way of sort of influencing and reading people's minds—"

"Wait. Wizards have mind-control? And they can read minds? And no one thought to tell me about—"

" _Harry_. Of course it's not that simple; it's more like a kind of power of suggestion. In any case, I'm quite sure that Snape has nothing to gain from it, so I really doubt he did anything to you."

"But you did say that he was acting strangely around me; you remember our first day of Potions Class, and then I've never exactly been a favorite of his, or a target, either…"

"No. That's just ridiculous. It was _not_ Professor Snape."

"Then what? If it wasn't a prophecy, or Legimency—"

"Legilimency."

"—that one, then what was it?"

"I don't know, drink anything funny last night?"

The two of them argued halfway through breakfast, Harry insistent that something was definitely the matter, Draco equally insistent that nothing was, until a pair of owls swooped by their seats during the morning mail delivery.

"Well, I'll be," said Draco softly as he opened his letter.

Harry was too busy reading his own letter, which was identical, to respond, but when he got through it, his reaction was much the same.

It was from Hagrid. _Bring your wands tonight,_ it read in short, clipped quillstrokes (something that the pureblood boy had told him meant the writer was in a bit of a temper). _We're going in the Forest. Something's been attacking the_ , and here a spilled drop of ink indicated that Hagrid had paused for a minute with his quill above the parchment, _forest creatures._

"I may owe you an apology," Draco said.

Harry was too taken aback by the news to pay any attention to the rarity of Draco's words. "I mean, I thought, but I didn't _really_ think…"

"Yeah."

"So it's real."

"Maybe."

"But… the Forest."

Draco frowned. "They shouldn't allow students there at all, let alone First-Years. Father should hear about this."

Right now, Harry didn't care too much about the particulars of the school's detention rules, so much as about his dream. Had it been a glimpse of the future? Would something happen to draw him to kill a unicorn and go after its blood? Having tasted it once, even in a dream, he wasn't sure he could resist it in real life, if it ever got that far, and he got the feeling that once he started drinking, he'd never be able to stop.

Draco practically dragged Harry to the Owlery to send off his letter before morning classes, and Harry spent all day distracted by the thought of what might happen later that evening, so much so that he accidentally set his glass of water on fire during Transfiguration instead of turning it into black coffee. After putting it out, Draco wondered how Harry had managed to set water on fire, speculating that maybe he'd turned a thin layer of it into oil and then accidental magic took care of the rest, but Harry was hardly listening.

Silver, slick, and sweet, the fluid of his dreams ran freely in his mind's eye, just out of sight, waiting for him, waiting for tonight…

Harry blinked. Somehow he'd managed to boil half the contents of his glass while freezing the other half solid. He shook his head and concentrated again, aware of the growing temptation and the passing of the hours until he'd be back in the Forest—no, that wasn't right, he'd never been—until he'd go to the first time into the Forest, and definitely not discover anything he'd already seen there, no, surely not.

And so it went. Each class was progressively more difficult than the last to get through, and he hardly noticed when Draco brought it up to Professor Snape that perhaps the two of them shouldn't really be serving detention in a forest which had Forbidden in the name, but their Head of House refused to intercede on their behalf, which Draco remarked was odd but probably unrelated to anything but Snape's continued mixed messages.

After dinner, Harry stumbled back down to the common room in a daze, and managed to find Theodore Nott in one corner. "I need help," he told the boy heavily, and collapsed into a chair opposite him.

Nott looked up from his work and arched an eyebrow.

Harry continued after a moment. "What do you know about Unicorn blood?" he asked.

The other boy leaned forwards, excited. "You found some?" he asked in a low voice.

"No," Harry groaned, trying to fight off the memories. "Not exactly. Just… tell me. Is there anything magical about it, anything at all?" There had to be. Had to be something that kept drawing his thoughts back to that enchanting, pure, alluring substance, and if anyone knew anything about it, it would be this strange boy, the quiet one who sat in corners by himself and had knowledge of Dark magic.

"Of course," Nott informed him. "It's just about one of the most powerful restoratives there is. Schedule five controlled substance, a full level above Phoenix tears. It can cure almost anything, really, except perhaps death itself, but even that's a near thing. Only problem is, it's highly addictive."

"You don't say," Harry muttered.

"Pardon?" asked Nott.

"Nothing," said Harry. "Continue."

"They also say it's cursed. No one's ever lasted more than a few months after drinking the stuff, and the writings of wizards who went on it are difficult to understand, but it seems some part of them faded from this world when they did."

"Huh."

"Yeah. So anyway, why the sudden interest?"

"Oh. I, uh…" Harry scrambled for an explanation. He settled on a version of the truth. "Detention with Hagrid tonight. I think there might be a unicorn involved."

"But I thought unicorns only lived in the Forest."

"They do."

"Ah." Nott's face showed him putting the pieces together. "And you want something that will help."

"If you know anything, I don't care how Dark it is, this is the Forest we're talking about, I'll take it."

"I see," the other boy said, thinking, an intense gleam in his eye. Harry reminded himself not to get on Theodore's bad side. "Well, there is one thing."

"Anything," said Harry, desperate.

"The incantation is _adflare_ ; you twirl your wand around, like this," and he demonstrated, "and you'll conjure a sort of poison gas that should scare off anything around you. Useful if surrounded. I know pack-beasts live in the Forest: werewolves, centaurs, giant spiders, who knows what else?"

"All right," said Harry, and tried the wand movement (sans incantation; they were in a public area). "Doesn't sound Dark."

Theodore grinned. "That's because you haven't seen the gas. I know I said poisonous, but I really should've said something more like… _hungry_."

"Hungry?"

"Just don't touch it, okay? And keep it away from any organic matter you want to keep intact."

"Right."

* * *

The time had come. Draco and Harry made their way down to the front entrance, where Filch unlocked the doors with a nasty smile and a chilling comment about punishment in the "good old days," something involving hanging from the ceiling by their wrists.

"Abou' time," said Hagrid when they'd arrived. "I bin waitin' fer yeh." He waved them over to the edge of the Forest with one end of his massive crossbow. "Now listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight. Now, there's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat."

Harry and Draco instantly shared a look of pure panic.

"Don' worry yerselves too bad," Hagrid said; "there's nothin' that lives in that forest that'll hurt yeh if yer careful. I'll even send Fang with yeh', just ter make sure. If yeh find the unicorn, send up green sparks with yer wand; if yeh get into trouble, send up red ones. I'll come and find yeh soon enough."

"Send up… red sparks," said Draco, sounding faint.

"Tha's right," confirmed Hagrid. "Red ones. Yeh wanna practice?"

"No, no, it's… I got it," he said. He turned to Harry, so that his back was to Hagrid, and mouthed what they were both thinking: _we're going to die._

"So basically," summarized Draco once they'd left earshot, "we're in the Forbidden Forest, which even the Headmaster, one of Britain's strongest wizards, says is too dangerous for us, with a ten-foot ex-wizard keeping watch with ancient Muggle weaponry. Except that all he's actually sent with us is this ruddy _dog_ , and there's probably going to be at a five-minute delay between our distress signal and actual help, meaning we're on our own, two first-years in the biggest deathtrap Hogwarts has to offer."

"Don't forget about the third-floor corridor," supplied Harry, rather unhelpfully.

"Right about now, I'd actually rather be there than here," Draco told him. Harry couldn't help but agree.

In the distance, they both heard a howl.

Draco looked up at the full moon. "Werewolf colony," he said. "Keep your voice down, and follow me."

They went off at a brisk pace, taking a left at the fork and winding their way deeper into the forest. At one point, they heard three more howls in quick succession, but they were farther away, so they kept on as they had been, and soon found themselves absolutely, completely lost.

There was a small clearing up ahead. Draco and Harry stepped out into the moonlight, Fang following quietly behind, and then Draco stopped. "Wait," he said, holding up a hand. "I hear something."

Something like a pair of flapping wings sounded overhead, repeated from many directions, and Harry glanced out into the woods. Already on edge, he saw moving shapes. "Get down!" he hissed, and threw himself to the forest floor. Draco did the same without hesitation, and Harry thrust his wand up into the air, whirling it around in a quick pattern, and called out, " _Adflare!_ "

Within moments, a sickly yellow-green mist billowed out of the tip of Harry's wand and spread up into the night sky. An acrid smell permeated the air, and where it touched the leaves on the trees' lower branches, it consumed them and grew thicker, leaving behind only the crisp black remnants of what had once been living.

"Is that one of Nott's?" Draco asked, a little panicked.

Harry nodded.

"Then we need to go— _now_ ," Draco said, and then two of them crawled on their hands and knees to the clearing's far side.

Already, the contagion was spreading. Three trees had already been engulfed completely, and now the entire area was coated in an airborne venom, spreading in all directions while Harry and Draco watched.

With a whine, Fang joined them, looking impatiently at the two humans.

"Yes, boy," Harry said absentmindedly, transfixed by the sight, then turned away and all three of them sped down the path ahead to get out of range of whatever was behind them.

"Is it going to end?" Draco asked, as they stopped to catch their breath.

"I don't know," Harry confessed.

"You. Don't. Know," Draco panted. "And you cast it _anyway?!_ "

"I panicked," Harry said. "I doubt it will eat everything; the magic has to expire sometime, right?"

"I hope so." Just then, they both ducked at the sound of leathery flapping wings above them; when they stood straight again, Draco glared at Harry. "A bat. You panicked at a colony of bats."

"We're in a werewolf-infested forest at night; what did you expect? And then there's that whole vampire thing."

"Vampires do not turn into bats."

"They don't?"

" _No_. Now come on." Draco stomped off into the trees ahead, Harry following.

* * *

It was some time later when they first saw it. Just a drop, Harry could have sworn it was nothing, but he did a double-take anyway and nearly fell behind. Not too much afterwards, he saw a small trail of the stuff, and had to close his eyes to concentrate. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right. Don't think about what's under the feet, don't think about where they were going, or whether any of the magical sweet wholesome filling _horribly_ addictive but fully amazing silver unicorn blood was getting on the soles of his shoes and whether he'd have to clean that off later or if he was lucky, maybe he could _lick_ it off, no, wait, that wasn't how it worked, was it?

"Harry," said Draco's voice up ahead, and Harry focused in on that, "I think I see something. It looks like blood."

Simply hearing the word aloud set Harry's veins on fire, and he struggled to keep his eyes closed, not knowing what he would do if he opened them at all.

"And up ahead… I think there's something else."

Harry focused on his breathing this time. One in, one out. One in, one out.

One in, one out. One in, one out. Left foot, right foot, left.

Malfoy shrieked, a sound Harry had definitely not expected from him, and Harry felt a sense of alarm.

He opened his eyes. "What's wrong, Draco?"

But his eyes provided the answer for him. In a strange almost-replay of Harry's dream, a cloaked figure crouched over a painfully bright four-legged body, the latter's legs sitting at impossibly strange angles; not the same as Harry had remembered, but disturbing nonetheless, and sitting in a pool of its own lifeblood.

The figure raised its hooded head and looked in their direction, and a sharp burning sensation emanated from Harry's scar. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before, several times worse, and next to him he heard Draco say the incantation for an array of red lights, but the latter was cut off at the end, and with Harry still reeling in pain, he couldn't see whether his friend had been successful or not.

When a moment later he was able to see clearly, both Draco and Fang lay motionless on the Forest floor, neither moving, but Harry didn't have time to check on them; all he had time for were simple spells, anything he could remember easily—

"Diffindo! Incendio! Petrificus Totalus!" All three spells were deflected away with simple gestures.

" _Noceo!"_ A jet of black light shot towards the dark figure, but this time, a wand emerged from beneath one robed sleeve and actively disintegrated the oncoming curse. Before Harry had time to react with another, his wand flew out of his hand and into the trees behind him. He turned to see where it went, took one step forwards, and ropes sprang out of the ground to grab his wrists and ankles, turning him forcefully back to face his mystery opponent, and Harry gasped in pain as his scar began to hurt again.

The stranger took two steps forwards, caressed its wand absentmindedly, and cocked its head to the side. "Harry Potter," it said in a snakelike voice that seemed to resonate throughout him; it seemed to enter his head not through his ears, but through his very scar. "The Boy Who Lived." A note of amusement entered its voice. "I particularly enjoyed that last spell of yours."

Harry stood in place, heart pounding. He was defenseless, some unknown malevolent force in front of him, and rather than go for the kill, it wanted _to talk._ He didn't know what scared him the most about that.

"I regret our meeting will be cut short tonight; no doubt young Malfoy's distress signal will have been seen by now. Truly, I would have preferred our first contact to have been under different circumstances, but fate has dealt us both a strange hand, has it not?" It seemed to sigh a theatrical little sigh. "In any case, I won't be killing you. There are things I must learn, first, and we all know how haste turned out for me the first time." It paused a moment, as if waiting for a reaction from Harry.

But as the thing spoke, a small bit of unicorn blood had dribbled down its chin and across the front of its robes. Harry could hardly follow the conversation for distraction.

"I wonder…" The figure in front of Harry held up two fingers, wiped its lower lip, and watched as Harry's eyes helplessly followed all the movements. Then it gave a low chuckle. "Fascinating… do you want some?" A gesture, then, towards the fallen unicorn, whose chest movements were reduced to mere twitches. The ropes fell away from Harry's limbs almost on their own. "Go ahead; it's all yours. I've finished for now. No doubt you're thirsty…?"

Harry took an involuntary step forwards, then another. "You know," mused the voice out loud, presumably for Harry's benefit, "I don't discard those who make themselves useful to me. And unicorn blood is… not easy to come by. Except, of course, for a wizard of my power. Something to think on, for later." A nod of farewell. "I shall be keeping an eye on you, Mr. Potter. You've managed to surprise even me; so rare, in a world as dull as this. But I shall take my leave now." With that, the figure retreated into the woods, unseen by Harry, who was slowly advancing on the fallen pearly-white beast, thinking that objectively this probably wasn't the best idea but on the other hand, he found himself really wanting to, and now that he thought of it, wasn't this perfectly good unicorn blood going to waste, here on the forest floor? He was doing this thing a favor, really, making sure its delicious, pure, _precious_ blood wasn't going to waste in the dirt. What a crime that would have been. No, he had to do this…

No sooner had he knelt in front of the creature's side, hands going to its flank to scoop up a measure of its ebbing life, than a distant thundering of hooves almost registered somewhere in the back of Harry's brain and a half-human shout was the last thing he heard before blacking out.


	9. Chapter 9

Soft, comforting blackness.

"I've done all I can for now," a woman's voice echoed in the distance. "But if he's been exposed, his chances are slim, and if it crossed his lips, there is nothing for him."

"Then we must hope this is a second time," said a man, "that he survives certain death. Fate, it seems, has something else planned for him than an early grave."

Something brushed at Harry's face, and he faintly stirred.

"I think the boy will live," a second man's voice said. "If he had partaken, no doubt the scar would be healed as well."

"An excellent observation," remarked the first man,

The pressure withdrew, and Harry began to drift further into sleep. Vaguely, he heard the woman say something about administering a potion, but he was too tired to hear it.

* * *

"Good afternoon, Harry."

Harry sat up and looked around. He didn't know how long it had been since the Forest. Probably just a day?

Sitting in a chair by the side of his bed was a white-bearded wizard in formal robes of a deep purple, pointed hat on his head and half-moon glasses on his face.

"Er… I, uh… good afternoon, Headmaster." He looked around: beds, four walls, sterile atmosphere, no decorations. Occasional white screens around some of the other beds, for privacy's sake. "Where am I?"

"You're in the Hospital Wing." Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot (among other titles), looked straight at Harry. "How are you feeling?"

"Er…" He paused. Here was one of the most powerful figures in government, and a legend besides, not to mention Headmaster of Harry's own school. It would do to show some respect. "I feel good, sir."

"That's good to hear," said Dumbledore cheerfully, and his eyes twinkled. "Let's just make sure, shall we? If you don't mind standing, of course."

Harry rose from the bed.

"Good, very good. Now, if you don't mind, please follow me."

Dumbledore led Harry out of the Hospital Wing and through the corridors. They didn't use any secret passages, but all the same, they appeared not three minutes later in a deserted corridor that Harry recognized as being halfway across the school.

"In here," the Headmaster said, leading Harry to what looked like an unused classroom. Inside, the desks and chairs had been moved to one side to make room for a ceiling-high, gold-framed mirror that stood on two clawed feet.

"Now, before we begin," he said, "it would do to hear a thing or two about how this mirror works. It is, as you might have guessed, a magical mirror. It does not show our reflections, but rather the deepest desires of our hearts. With the proper application of magic, it can even help us see ourselves clearly enough to _re_ discover our truest desires, if we have lost them. Do you understand what I am telling you, Harry?"  
"Yes sir." He even did, sort of, but he wouldn't appear weak in front of the country's strongest wizard.

"Then let us begin."

Dumbledore gestured for Harry to step in front of the mirror. He did, and saw nothing in the surface, which was simply flat and unreflective. The Headmaster, closing his eyes, placed a solemn hand on the mirror's gilt frame and said quietly, "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi."

As if on command, the mirror's surface rippled softly and became a startling shade of silver. As it continued to ripple, Harry began to feel that the rippling silver fluid was familiar, and a strange hunger came over him as he began to remember how that silver liquid might somehow _taste,_ and he heard Dumbledore's voice.

"Harry," said the Headmaster, "what do you see?"

But Harry was too preoccupied with the mirror to answer. He walked forwards, one step and then another, bringing one hand within inches of the surface, savoring the moment before he could dip in a finger.

"Harry," someone said. " _Harry._ "

Harry blinked and looked to the side. The school's Headmaster was standing there. What was he doing there? He—they… oh. Right.

"You saw it, didn't you." It wasn't a question.

Harry nodded silently.

"Your wand, please."

This was the end, then. Here was the Headmaster, asking for his wand, going to expel him. Harry didn't even argue. Unicorn blood was forbidden, that much Theodore Nott had made clear. So he simply withdrew his wand from his pocket and handed it over.

"Thank you," Dumbledore said. "Now return your focus to the mirror."

Harry was a little perplexed, but he did so, and saw that the ripples were moving in a certain direction now, instead of outwards. They were moving… well, down and to the right. He looked over towards that edge of the mirror and noticed that the Headmaster had tapped Harry's wand against the side of the frame, near one corner, and the silver was flowing out through that edge.

Vaguely Harry realized his own mistake in thinking Dumbledore had wanted his wand to snap it (clearly he simply needed something of Harry's for a spell), but this thought was overwhelmed by the sudden desire to preserve some vestige of the fading silver. He placed both his hands, palms flat, on the face of the mirror, and as he did, a flash of light came across it, but afterwards there was nothing but the same silver pool.

A small pain began building in Harry's head, and he tried to ignore it. But the longer he stood there, the harder it was. Eventually he was forced to drop his gaze and put his hands to his head with a gasp of pain.

Dumbledore laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry looked up to see the man was perspiring slightly, and watching Harry closely.

"Are you all right?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes," Harry replied. "Just need a minute."

"I think that's enough for tonight," said Dumbledore. "But before we finish, tell me one thing: has the image in the mirror changed at all?"

Harry risked a quick glance. Shadows flitted across the face of the silver pool, but nothing was distinct as of yet. "Something's moving. I can't see what, though. Sorry, sir."

"No need to apologize." Dumbledore handed Harry his wand back. "You've done well tonight, very well. We shall resume this tomorrow evening. Meet me at my office at six thirty, and we will come here together."

Harry nodded.

* * *

"There you are," Blaise said when Harry got back to the common room. "Draco here's refused to say anything about how you two ended up in the Hospital Wing until you got out."

"Mostly because I don't know the full story myself," said Draco. "Madam Pomfrey checked me over and then made me stay the night, but I was released first thing this morning. What happened to you after I was Stunned?"

The usual gang was there: Blaise, Pansy, Draco, and Theodore Nott, all of whom perked up at the mention of combat in the woods, and Harry and Draco traded off telling parts of the story until they got to the part where Draco had been knocked out.

"So then I cast a few spells," said Harry. "Severing Charm, Full-Body-Bind, anything I could think of. Of course nothing worked. I even… I even used one of yours," and nodded to Nott.

"Oh?" The boy seemed especially interested to hear the result of that.

"Nothing," Harry replied. "The guy blasted it out of the air, disarmed me, and bound me with magical ropes, all before I could even get one more syllable into my next spell."

"So he was testing you. Seeing how far you'd go. When you brought out the big guns, he made you stop."

Harry shrugged. "He complimented me on my spell choice—well, your spell choice, really—and then rambled about fate for a bit, offered me some unicorn blood, and left."

The others just looked at him.

Harry shrugged. "Does it sound weird when I tell it like that?"

"No," said Pansy, "it's just, well, unicorn blood. Not your average Potions ingredient, you might say."

"Wait," said Theodore. "Didn't you come to me asking about unicorn blood right before you left?"

Now it was everyone's turn to stare at Nott.

"Yes," said Harry. "As a matter of fact, I did. I dreamed about the Forest before I went there. But it was a different unicorn, I'm sure of it; does that mean two unicorns died recently? He did say it was easily within his power to procure more blood for me."

"More?" Blaise looked faint.

"Yes. He offered some, I said that. It was in the context of… wait. I remember now." Harry put his hand to his forehead. "I was a bit distracted at the time. Dead unicorn and everything. But he said something. Something about not killing me, he had more to learn, because being hasty had turned out poorly for him last time."

This time the others had gone pale. The expressions on some of their faces could even have given the Bloody Baron a fright. "You don't think…"

"That's exactly," said Draco, "what I think."

"The Dark Lord?" Harry was on the one hand skeptical, but on the other hand the pain in his scar began to make a lot more sense in that light. Something something Boy-Who-Lived Curse Scar.

"Impossible," said Blaise. "If He was back, somebody would know. Our _parents_ would know." He said the last with knowing emphasis, subtly rubbing his left arm.

Draco paused, and nodded. "Fair point. But that still leaves some things unexplained. Who would be that desperate, to go after the unicorns?"

No one had a good response to that.

"In any case," Harry said, "I went over to the unicorn, and before I could really decide what to do with it, I heard something moving in the woods and that was it."

"Decide?" asked Blaise, roughly. "What was there to decide?"

"You know," said Harry, and made a helpless gesture. No one reacted. "You know, just… I don't know, _stuff_. If you've never been anywhere near it, you wouldn't know how it can be. But that stuff, it just _wants_ to be drunk."

"And did you?" asked Pansy in a small voice.

"I don't know," said Harry after a long moment. "I really don't. I was dreaming about it before I even saw it in person for the first time, but that doesn't really make any sense, does it? And then Dumbledore goes and brings me this magical mirror that shows me my heart's desire and then guess what it is? But I don't recall drinking any."

Harry's friends exchanged looks.

"The Headmaster is not your friend," Draco said.

Harry frowned. "No? He seemed friendly enough."

"Really," said Pansy. "He's not."

"Are you sure? It's just, I've never really had a problem with him…"

Some of the others glanced towards Theodore Nott, who sat to one side, his eyes glued to the back of a chair. "He killed my mother," he said in a quiet voice, one filled with cold anger.

"You weren't the only one who lost family in the war, Harry," Pansy said.


End file.
